Frenzy by John Lutz Read Free Book Online Page B

leaving all other equipment and belongings behind, and jumped off the stern into the roiled water in the boat’s wake.
    Tucker had forgotten how heavy the backpack was. It began to pull him down into the swirling water. He tried to release it, but one of its straps was tangled around his wrist.
    He was actually underwater when a hand gripped the backpack’s strap and he felt himself lifted out of the water. He thumped painfully into the bottom of the wooden dinghy and was lying on top of the backpack.
    â€œEasy, mate,” a voice growled.
    Tucker raised his head to look around. There were two other men in the boat. Both were badly wounded. One in the chest. The other—the one who had rescued Tucker—was a young blond giant with a nasty head wound.
    Tucker realized that he himself was bleeding. His blood was turning the water sloshing around the bottom of the dinghy a deepening red. He raised a hand to touch his head, probing for damage.
    He was frightened by what he felt.
    He heard the persistent drone of aircraft and knew the Stukas were returning. Would they sink the fishing boat? Would they consider the dinghy too small and unimportant to strafe? A waste of ammunition?
    Of course it is! Of course! It’s nothing but a bleeding rowboat!
    The drone of the engines grew to a roar. Changed tone as the planes dropped lower and flattened out their trajectory.
    Tucker carefully raised his head again and saw an aircraft approaching alarmingly low over the water. Coming straight at the dinghy.
    His breath swelled cold in his chest and he prepared to die.
    But there was something different about this aircraft. It didn’t have the awkward gull-like wings of the Stukas and, unlike the Stukas, its landing gear was retracted.
    The plane waggled its wings and Tucker now clearly saw its markings—RAF markings. As it flashed overhead, the craft assumed the familiar silhouette of a British Hurricane fighter plane. Off in the distance, dark specks circled and climbed and dived in the sky. The Hurricanes had engaged the Stukas. The German planes were dive bombers and not fighter planes. Tucker felt some satisfaction in thinking they wouldn’t escape the Hurricanes. Not all of them.
    One of the other two men in the dinghy began to shout, then stood to cheer. It was the blond giant. Tucker could see the inside of his skull behind his left ear. The other man remained unmoving and silent.
    Within a few minutes the sky was clear of all but one Hurricane, which circled protectively over the dinghy.
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    The water around the tiny dinghy was unbroken. There wasn’t even debris floating to show where the Sondra had sunk.
    The silent man in the dinghy’s bow looked dead to Tucker. The blond giant who’d cheered and shouted was still excited. He stared at Tucker with unnaturally bright blue eyes and said, “We gotta row, mate. We row and we’ll make it.”
    â€œDon’t be crazy,” Tucker said. “We’ll never make it all the way to England. If we just drift, one of the other boats might pick us up. That Hurricane’s marking our location.”
    â€œIt’ll run low on fuel and have to leave,” the man said.
    Tucker hadn’t thought of that. It was a possibility.
    As if its pilot had overheard their conversation, the Hurricane waggled its wings again, then flew away toward the direction of England.
    â€œPick up a bloody oar and row!” the blond man in the boat said.
    Tucker figured he should do that. The man was twice his size and might throw him overboard if he didn’t comply.
    He worked his way up to a sitting position, and was behind the big man and couldn’t take his eyes off the back of his head. It was a wonder he could even sit up, considering the terrible wound that he seemed not to know about.
    Tucker sat facing France and rowed in the direction the Hurricane had gone, toward England, praying his head wound wasn’t as bad as the one